


time, curious time

by lux_et_astra



Series: invisible string [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:33:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26033485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lux_et_astra/pseuds/lux_et_astra
Summary: Everyone has a soulmate.Everybody except Yaz.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Series: invisible string [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1889722
Comments: 8
Kudos: 82





	time, curious time

Everyone has a soulmate.

It’s written somewhere on your body — in their own handwriting — their birth name, in most cases, but not all. Her mum has her dad’s name written across her inner arm, and her mum’s name is emblazoned across her dad’s forehead.

Her sister Sonya has the name Ryan written across her thigh. Ryan swears it’s not his handwriting, but that doesn’t stop her from flirting with him shamelessly. All of her friends have one— even Izzy Flint had a name on her waist, but she’d never let anyone see. Looking now at Facebook posts, she understands. It would have been hard to explain the name Charlotte to her homophobic parents in a small-town Christian school. It almost makes her feel sorry for her. Almost.

Some people even have two. Ryan tells her that Grace had his grandfather’s name across her calf, but Graham’s name curling around her wrist. Some people have the name of their platonic soulmate, or a family member, but most of them are romantic. But everybody has a name.

Everybody except Yaz. 

She’s checked every inch of her skin over and over, desperately hoping that she’s somehow kept missing it for twenty years. She wondered for a while whether maybe it was inside her ear canal, or under her hair. But she’s pretty sure by now that she hasn’t got a name at all.

What she does have is an elaborate birthmark in the shape of nine interlocking circles, with tiny lines and dots and curves inside them. It stretches across her entire back. She’d hoped for a while that it was a name, written in a language she didn’t know. But it didn’t say anything in any known language on Earth, so eventually, Yaz had just resigned herself to giving up. It really was just an intricate, million-to-one odds, birthmark.

Maybe she‘s just destined to be alone.

That had depressed her for a long time. She’d believed she was unworthy of love; that she was being punished by Allah; that she was broken and unfixable. But she’s had twenty years to resign herself to the facts. She still dates people, despite knowing the whole time she’s not their one. She’s decided she doesn’t need a soulmate to be happy. She just needs herself, and her job, and her family. And maybe a cat.

Then the Doctor falls out of the sky and into her life. Literally. The Doctor is a bizarre woman. She tells them incredible stories about adventures she’s been on, back when she used to be a man, and she talks non-stop and moves non-stop and lives non-stop, like there’s a motor in her brain or in her hearts and she’s not capable of letting it still. (In the Doctor’s worse moments, Yaz thinks that maybe she’s afraid. Of letting it still. Of what might happen if she did.)

The Doctor isn’t human. That’s a fact. She used to be a tall, white-haired Scotsman — which, they discover, after some awkward miscommunication, does not mean she’s just a trans woman, she actually physically regrew her entire body — she has two hearts, three brain stems, and something called an ecto spleen. But all of this, they forget, sometimes. She looks just like them, acts just like them, speaks just like them.

But there is one physical difference that becomes glaringly obvious the first time she rolls up her sleeves. Everyone can see the name River written across her cheek, and Yaz can’t deny the twinge of jealousy she feels when she sees it. But one day she’s working on the TARDIS, she’s got her goggles across her face, and Yaz walks into the room and sees her bare arms and she knows she’s not supposed to stare, but she’s struck totally speechless.

Her arms look like someone’s printed a dictionary across them. She’s literally covered in names, a couple of which she recognises from her stories, but most she’s never even heard her mention. She’s still standing there, gaping, when the Doctor clearly realises her presence and twirls around, a bright grin across her face.

“Hey, you! I was thinking we could go check out the Frost Fair next, since it’s nearly Christmas. As long as we don’t disturb the alien that lives under the Thames, we shouldn’t even be in any danger.”

“Yeah,” manages Yaz, guiltily drawing her eyes away from her arms. “That sounds good.”

The Doctor’s eyes flick down to her own bare arms, skimming over the names. “Oh. I forgot. This always happens.”

“Sorry?” asks Yaz, scrunching her forehead.

“Come sit,” says the Doctor, patting the ledge next to her. She peels her goggles away from her face, the word across her cheek marred by a red line where they’d been resting. “I always forget that humans don’t work the same way as I do. Then my companions always get confused when they see these.” She sticks her arms out, twisting them over.

There must be a thousand names across her body. Yaz’s eyes flip over them, taking some in. Sarah-Jane. Amy. Mickey. Jenny. Tegan. Ben.

“They’re beautiful,” says Yaz honestly. She would give anything to have that many soulmates. “You love them all?

“Time Lords work a little differently,” explains the Doctor. “If you love someone, in any way, they get on your skin. Regardless of whether they’re your soulmate or not. You can always tell the romantic soulmates, though.” She offers Yaz her arm. “Touch these ones. Then feel this one.” She gestures to her cheek.

Yaz does as she says, running her fingers over her arm, then lifting her fingers to her cheek. When she touches the word River, it’s like there’s a tingling under her fingers, and the Doctor laughs, snatching Yaz’s wrist out of the way.

“Ticklish?” teases Yaz. The Doctor nods, resting her head on her shoulder. “Maybe you could tell me about some of them.”

“Some of them,” agrees the Doctor. “But to be honest, I only know who about a quarter of them are.”

Yaz moves so she can look directly at the Doctor. “What do you mean?”

“I have a very long lifespan,” she says. “A lot longer than I was expecting, clearly. I’ve only met about one in four of the people on my skin yet.”

Yaz laughs, disbelieving. “That’s... so weird.”

“Yeah, well, I think only having one is weird,” counters the Doctor. Yaz tries to smile, but she can feel the sadness in her eyes betraying her. She’s probably on the Doctor’s skin somewhere. She hopes she is. But she can never have the kind of relationship with her she wants. She can never have that with anyone.

“What’s wrong?” asks the Doctor, squeezing Yaz’s hand. Yaz’s fingers brush the inside of her wrist and she feels the tingle again, gentler, but she doesn’t look. She doesn’t want to know.

“Nothing,” she lies. The Doctor gives her a look, and she relents. “I don’t have a soulmate.”

The Doctor cocks her head. “I thought all humans had a soulmate.”

“Yeah, well, not me.” She’s not entirely sure why she says the next thing that comes out of her mouth, but she says it anyway. “The closest thing I have to a name is a weird birthmark on her back.” Actually, she thinks, glancing around, the markings on the TARDIS remind her weirdly of the circles on her back. The Doctor’s face is unreadable. 

“Yeah?”

Yaz swallows hard, then lifts her shirt over her back. She’s wearing a solid sports bra, but it still feels alarmingly intimate. She twists her body, showing the Doctor the circles on her back. She feels gentle fingers trace across her skin, then something crashes and she turns around instantly, baffled at seeing the Doctor scrambling to her feet and fiddling with things on the console. There’s something metal rolling on the ground, something the Doctor must have knocked over in her hurry to get up. 

“Nice mark. Frost Fair, wasn’t it?” Her words come out in a rush as she rushes around the console, preparing them for their next journey. Yaz can almost feel the whiplash from the Doctor’s sudden change in demeanour. She tugs her shirt back over her head and stands up.

“Everything okay, Doctor?” she asks, bemused.

“Oh, fine!” she chirps. “Totally fine. King of okay, me. Or, Queen, I guess.” If Yaz looks close enough, she can almost imagine she can see the light glinting off a damp patch on her cheek. “Frost Fair! Love the Frost Fair. Did I tell you about the time me and Bill rescued the alien under the Thames?”

“Yeah,” murmurs Yaz. “Yeah, you did.” Confused and a little concerned, she shakes her head, pushing the incident to the back of her mind. This is weird, yes. But what with the Doctor isn’t?

It’s not until she meets the woman whose name is written across the Doctor’s face that she gets any answers. River Song is gorgeous and badass and Yaz can instantly see why the Doctor loves her so much. She can’t pretend she understands all their history— she doesn’t think anyone but the two of them understand that— but a blind person could see that they’re more in love than almost anyone else in the universe. Seeing the ring on River’s finger only confirms it.

She’s not jealous. She’s really not. River’s rescued the Doctor from prison but there’s no hyperactive excitable alien, just a small blonde head under piles of blankets and she looks so painfully human. There’s no space for jealousy. There’s just crushing relief and concern and worry and pain. River sits next to her the whole time. Yaz sits in the armchair in Graham’s living room and doesn’t take her eyes off the sleeping Doctor.

“What happened to her?” she asked, her voice soft in the quiet room. River and the Doctor have been back for fourteen hours, and the Doctor has been unconscious the entire time.

“Her body needs time to catch up,” River explains. “She’s been in prison for months. Even I don’t know how long. She’s tired and malnourished—“ River pauses. “Honestly, I don’t think she’s hurt. But she’s been alone, for months. The Doctor can’t be alone. He— she— hates it. Too many thoughts, she told me once. Too much and too little all at once.”

Yaz feels like crying. She’s tried to be there for the Doctor for the last— she’s not actually sure how long— but she had no idea what she was going through. She feels a desperate ache in her heart. “What can I do?”

“Nothing while she’s asleep,” says River softly. “When she wakes up, we just need to be here for her. Let her know that she’s not alone any more. And then help her cope with whatever traumas she’s been revisiting while she’s been away. And— whatever happened to her before that. Gallifrey was destroyed. The Master killed. Her home is gone, again. She’s going to feel pretty lost.” She’s quiet for a moment. “She’s so lucky to have you.”

Yaz wipes at a stray tear and shakes her head. “We’re lucky to have her. She’s shown us the universe.”

River’s smile is knowing. “She is the universe.” She sounds almost reverent, and brushes away a strand of damp, matted blonde hair from the Doctor’s warm forehead.

Any slight traces of jealousy drift away. The way River is looking at the Doctor is the exact same as Yaz imagined her own face would look. “The entire universe,” she agrees. “More. She’s... she’s more. More than anything.”

River tucks the blanket around the Doctor, then makes her way over to perch on the arm of Yaz’s chair. “She mentioned you, you know.”

Yaz feels her heart pick up a bit. “She did?”

“Before she fell asleep. I got myself into her cell, and she was sitting in the corner, eyes closed, but awake. She was saying your name. Then when I helped her out, she told me to find you. Even let me patch her into the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits. Brought us straight here.”

Yaz could sob. She grasps at River’s offered hand wordlessly, swallowing the tears. A mark on River’s outstretched arm catches her eye. It’s emblazoned across the inside of her forearm; nine intricate, connected circles. Yaz recognises it immediately.

“That’s— I have that mark,” she gasps. “You have the same birthmark as me?”

River laughs, but not unkindly. “That’s not a birthmark. Or have humans stopped with the whole soul mark thing since I left?”

It feels like her heart has stopped. “What?”

“This is the Doctor’s name,” says River softly. “This script is called circular Gallifreyan. It’s her native language. And her name isn’t the Doctor. It’s something much longer and much more complicated and much more secret. That’s what this is.”

She could scream, or cry, or faint. She settles for laughing. “I— She’s my soulmate? She’s been my soulmate this entire time? But— I showed her my mark! She didn’t say anything.”

“Rule one,” says River. “The Doctor lies. She’s so afraid, Yaz. Of loving. Of losing. That’s the thing, when you have a lifetime as long as ours. You lose everything. Everyone. As much as I hate to say it, you can’t be with her forever. You die, or you get trapped, or you leave, because she’s lived for two thousand years and she’ll live for thousands more. And you... You’re human. She’s afraid she’s going to lose you. And she thinks if she pushes you away— never tells you the truth— she thinks it’ll make it easier.”

“No.” The Doctor’s voice is hoarse and shaky, and Yaz and River instantly snap their heads around. “Nothing makes it easier. I— I only hoped.”

River stands up, presses a quick kiss to the Doctor’s forehead, then heads to the doorway. “I’m going to make tea. Give me a shout when you’re ready.”

Yaz is already halfway across the room, falling to her knees by the side of the sofa. “You’re okay,” she whispers breathlessly, pressing her forehead against hers. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

The Doctor nods wordlessly. “I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“No,” says Yaz, wrapping her arms around the Doctor as she struggles to sit up. “No, don’t be sorry. Don’t ever be sorry. I got you back. I... that’s always enough.”

“I was so selfish,” breathes the Doctor, burying her head in Yaz’s shoulder. “I thought— if I didn’t tell you, then maybe— maybe the universe wouldn’t be so cruel.”

“I understand,” she says softly. “It’s okay. Just stay with me, here. That’s all I need.”

“I’m not okay,” sobs the Doctor, Yaz’s shoulder slowly becoming more damp. “I tried to be okay, for you. I had to be okay.”

“You don’t have to be anything but alive.” Yaz rubs the Doctor’s back gently.

“I missed you.” The Doctor pulls away, wiping at her hears with the back of her hand. Yaz spots something, and catches her wrist gently as she goes to lower it. She turns the skinny— too skinny— arm in her hand. Written in her own scribbled handwriting, large across her wrist, is the name Yasmin. She traces it with her fingers and it sparks to life beneath her, a tingle of something that feels like home.

“Meant to be, huh?” she teases lightly. The Doctor nods, smiling and sniffing. “That name, that right there, that’s my promise. I’m not going anywhere. Not for a very long time. I’m yours.” As if she’s proving her point, she lifts her tank top over her head and shows the Doctor the circles— the name— across her back. “You’re my soulmate,” she breathes, saying words she never dreamed would come out of her mouth. “That means forever.”


End file.
